Smart Thermostat: What is it & How it Works

A smart thermostat is a smart technology used for home automation which can remotely control your home’s temperature through a smart device. Smart thermostats allow access to your home’s heating and/or air conditioning system and lets you automatically schedule the temperature of your home throughout the day. This keeps your home as comfortable as possible, day and night.

How a Smart Thermostat Works

Just like most smart technologies used to automate a smart home, a basic smart thermostat works through a WiFi. It allows you to easily adjust the warmth or coolness of any room in your house. Unlike a regular room thermostat where you use a dial or remote to control the room’s temperature, a smart thermostat lets you access and manage the temperature of your entire house wherever you are, using your smart device.

This provides a more efficient, accessible, and user-friendly approach to keep your home’s temperature comfortable even while you’re away, depending on your personal preference and lifestyle. The smart thermostat works through your heating system’s boiler, the thermostat’s main control, and an app downloaded into your smart device. This app lets you adjust the temperature as you wish, even while you’re away.

The more high-tech type of smart thermostat has the ability to learn your schedule from your behavior. It can detect while you’re on your way home, and then prepares your home to your desired temperature. Because smart thermostats can adapt to your schedule and lifestyle, it acts automatically to provide comfort when you’re at home. It can also turn off your heating or air conditioning system automatically when you leave the house.

Benefits of Installing Smart Thermostat in Your Home

A smart thermostat is considered a good investment when you take the following important factors into consideration:

How busy your schedule is

How long you plan to stay or live in your current home/place

How long you want your initial investment to pay off

Ability to Remotely Control Your Home’s Temperature

Being able to access and manage your home’s temperature even while you’re away with the use of a smart device and a simple app is appealing enough for people with very busy schedules. You can turn off your heating and/or air conditioning when you’re still in your car, at the office, or on a holiday in another country.

Further, you can get the temperature of your house ready when you’re driving back home to ensure that it’s comfortable according to your taste, just right in time when you arrive. Your access to your smart thermostat is just literally within your fingertips, using a few taps on your smart device. This makes a smart thermostat a good investment for busy people.

Ability to Monitor Your Heating/Cooling Usage

While installing a smart thermostat won’t directly save you money, smart thermostats provide the ability to control your heating/cooling system more efficiently and this can help you save in the long run. Moreover, you will be provided with reports about your heating/cooling usage which will help you understand how you can adjust your routine accordingly so you can save energy.

Smart thermostats are only recommended to be installed if you are planning to stay in your current home for a while. This is especially recommended if you own your place. However, if you’re just renting, you may still install a smart thermostat as long as you get approval from your landlord, and you find this investment worthwhile. Generally, the longer you own and use your smart thermostat, the sooner it will pay for itself.

Types of Smart Thermostats

There are different types of smart thermostats available in the market and each offers varied functions. Examples of the different smart thermostats are as follows:

Learning Thermostats

Learning thermostats are smart thermostats that have the ability to learn when the house is likely to be occupied and when it will be left empty according to the usual schedule and behavior of the occupants/users. Learning thermostats can then pre-heat or pre-cool the house to make it comfortable when the occupants arrive. These smart thermostats can gradually adjust to the changes in schedule and lifestyle of the residents, keeping comfort and energy savings.

Connected Thermostats

Connected thermostats are a type of smart thermostat that can be controlled through a WiFi or internet connection for remote management and programming. Users are allowed to adjust heating/cooling settings from other internet-connected smart devices. This type of smart thermostats typically does not provide analytic information.

Zoned Systems

Zoned systems have the ability to control the temperature in individual rooms rather than controlling the temperature of the whole house. This can increase customisation and energy savings because you can only turn on the heating or cooling system of an occupied room, excluding other areas that are empty during a particular time of the day.

Learning Zoned Systems

Learning zoned systems are the most advanced smart thermostats which combine the abilities of a learning thermostat and a zoned system. Learning zoned systems have the ability to learn when each room of a house is normally occupied and then automatically schedules the heating or cooling for a particular room according to the preference of the usual occupant.

Why Install a Smart Thermostat?

Smart thermostats eliminate the hassle of adjusting the temperature and climate in your home to provide automated comfort and energy efficiency. They can stop heating or cooling an empty home for you especially if you’re too busy to do it manually. It also makes sure your home temperature is ready to make you feel comfortable when arrive. Some smart thermostats can even adjust automatically based on certain ambient conditions such as humidity.

Aside from making your home comfortably warm or cool based on your personal taste, you will also be able to save energy in the long run because it lets you understand your usage through their regular reports. This lets you adjust your usage accordingly to allow savings. Generally, a smart thermostat is considered a long-term investment that provides returns that are way better than money – it’s a more comfortable living for your busy lifestyle.

The SMARTHOMEWORKS are here to help. We plan and custom design Smart Homes. Call us on (02) 8197 1122 orcontact us here.